Posted
by
Zonk
on Saturday April 05, 2008 @06:26PM
from the ugly-truth dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Though the Redmond software giant may be extending the lifetime of XP on low-end laptops, the end is nigh for the aging OS. That extension makes perfect sense, as recent studies have shown XP is far faster than Vista across a number of platforms. Still, Microsoft is 'sticking to its guns' when it comes to drop-dates for most other uses of the XP operating system. 'There are several dates that apply, but the one you're probably thinking of is the June 30 deadline that Dix referred to. That's the last day when large computer makers -- the Dells, HPs and Lenovos of the world -- will be allowed to preinstall Windows XP on new PCs. It also marks the official end of XP as a retail product.'"

You have to follow a few links [computerworld.com] in the first link
to get to this fine article where they explain that in 2007, XP's share went up in the enterprise. Since we know the end is nigh for Vista as well
there seems little motivation to feel this pain.

For now it's up to the users to decide if and when XP "dies". There are two ways I can
think of for Microsoft to kill XP: (1) They could develop and release a useable next-generation OS(which remains to be seen) or (2) Putting on the tinfoil hat, I guess Microsoft could "accidentally" leak hitherto-unknown XP vulnerabilities so that XP will be so exploitable and unpatchable that it will
eventually be unuseable...but that scenario is unlikely given Microsoft's support lifecycle policy [microsoft.com]. I doubt that they could handle lack of innovation and 1 or 2 more crappy OS releases before *NIX and Apple eat MS' marketshare. Also, MS' foray into the services market may go bust and after that, supporting their legacy software may be one of the few things that will earn them money.

You might have heard of this little thing called GNU/Linux that's been able to do everything XP and Vista can but with far fewer resources. No? Oh well, run your 7 year old OS and wait for Windows 7. The 7 to 7, or 7up should match the Coke classic upgrade very well, complete with a corn syrup obesity epidemic. Where did you want to go yesterday?

>>What about current and next gen games?>>How do I get those to work?>This wikipedia link [link to playstation 3] should help.

So your answer on how to get PC games to work on Linux, is to not play PC games? I'm just *not allowed* to play starcraft II when it comes out?

Many people own PC's specifically for playing games, and don't do much else with them. Is your solution for them, that they don't need a computer at all? Or maybe they should put Linux on their computer, and then throw it in the closet and never look at it again?

Blind evangelism isn't helping Linux... it turns people off when they are given bad advice by people with an agenda.

I use linux very extensively and find a number of niceties (compiz has far more practical features than Vista and OSX, and a number of general benefits of running a platform that is comprised entirely of things I can examine transparently myself but also is a healthy competitive landscape from the commercial vendor perspective). Making the hardware consist of interchangeable commodity parts has done wonders for the pricing of components, and the similar phenomenon is even more pronounced in software. Every user including gamers should appreciate what that means. Especially as MS increasingly treats the customers as the enemy (embracing DRM, increasingly bold 'anti-piracy' measures).

That said there are certain approaches:-Ignore Linux and gaming. The highly immediately pragmatic stand, probably what you would justify. The question here becomes are you forced up the upgrade trail by Vista? A weaker, yet not currently aggravating stance is to at least boycott Vista and tell microsoft you won't pay, and by extension boycotting games if they make DirectX 10 a requirement, hardware if they fail to provide XP drivers, etc.

-Use Linux and cave if Wine will run the game. Wine runs a surprisingly large number of games (Orange Box a popular example). This, of course, doesn't necessarily send the desired message, but it goes a ways. I have seen software patches and graphics drivers note Wine-specific issues, so some developers are seeing Wine as a valid demographic to target given the effort. This requires being vocal about your mode of usage, or else face game patches screwing up your experience by making Wine-incompatible design choices.

-Use Linux and refuse to buy any non-native games. There are some publishers that released native games. NeverWinter Nights (but not 2), id games, Savage 2. Reward them for publishing quality games for your platform, while being vocal about refusal to buy other titles. There are some decent Free games too, I was surprised how decent Nexuiz was (though I confess the artwork isn't as nice as other games, but the engine seems pretty good at its core).

I'm a hybrid of sorts. I'll check out a demo under wine if the game is overwhelmingly interesting (i.e. orange box) to see if I want it and would risk it, but will be much much more likely to buy a random game with a native linux binary. A lot of my gaming is reserved for console games, but FPS and RTS and the like I feel no console has an adequate interface (though metroid prime on wii was not too shabby). BTW, server-only binaries on linux aren't enough for me. I know it seems like being partly evangelical, but the reality is I want more out of my core platform experience and don't want to be beholden to a single corporate entity. The PC architecture is great for that, with multiple compatible vendors for practically every part except the OS platform, so long as MS is the dominant vendor. Making moves to change that is a good thing for consumers.

Sure... it can be argued... however, you cant expect anyone (at least not in the regards to "business") to switch their OS, their Office, their dev IDE, media player, chat communications, etc. overnight like its a miracle cure "its exactly the same"...you trailed off before you came up with a suitable alternative to VisualStudio too... MS Office = OpenOffice... i'll give you that, infact in many ways its almost a better alternative to switch from MS Office 2003 to OpenOffice than it is to switch to Office 2

you trailed off before you came up with a suitable alternative to VisualStudio

What about Photoshop?

If you're a developer and you need a full-blown IDE you may need to run VisualStudio and XP or Vista on the machine you use for development. Same if you're a graphics artist. You might have to spend $600.00 or whatever it is to get Photoshop, and get used to the idea that you'll have to run it in Vista whether you want it or not.

But that's not most people. Most people's needs are actually better met with FOSS projects if they are mature enough (just like proprietary software) and have a healthy community of users and developers supporting them.

If you are a pro, or a serious amateur, it may be worth your the investment to buy Photoshop, even if you have to purchase a machine dedicated to the task of using it. But if you have a cubicle farm full of people using email, a word processor and an accounting package and maybe sharing printers and doing some simple file sharing, you can do that all very efficiently with Linux. Spend the money on the departments that may need an expensive piece of proprietary software - and the hardware required to run it. But don't assume it is the only solution, or even the best solution, especially for departments (and users) with more modest needs.

you trailed off before you came up with a suitable alternative to VisualStudio

What about Photoshop?

I'm sure that you can come up with all sorts of programs which justify keeping Windows. ("well I *must* run microsoft office")

I'm sure you can come up with all sorts of features which prevent you from using free alternatives. ("a fully-featured graphics editor? that's no use; it doesn't support CMYK natively")

I'm sure that no matter what the free software world provides for you, you'll be able to find some fault with it.

And that's fine. You can stick with your current supplier and hope that it all works out okay.

This article is about their next-generation OS being unusable though, and about the end-of-life for the OS which everyone uses. Still feel confident about keeping all your computing tasks tied to that supplier?

The answer isn't to respond to every offer of free software with "well it doesn't do x, therefore I'll pour scorn on its authors and remain with a homogenous Microsoft solution to everything". A more sensible approach would be to start moving what you can to free platforms while you still have a chance.

Until they sell out the rest of the way Eclipse makes a nice development platform to replace Visual Studio. If they do sell out there will be a fork. You'll find that if Eclipse isn't included in your distribution you'll find it in the Applications installer. All linux users can develop applications on day one if they want to. They don't have to, but since it's built by developers they served their own needs first. It turns out programming is not some occult science after all.

As for J#, C#, VB and WebDev, we're back to the same "How do I keep giving Microsoft money" question again. Those are not standards. They're proprietary solutions and stuff you build on them will obsolete every time Microsoft decides it needs more of your money. It's a trap. Don't fall into it. If you must program in those soon-to-be dead languages then you've created your own predicament and nobody can help you.

Photoshop? Enough with the photoshop. I don't care about photoshop. If you need a dedicated photoshop box it's no excuse to chain everyone in your enterprise to Windows when it's only you that is determined to suffer.

3d? You have to be frimping kidding. You don't really think Windows is a cutting edge 3d platform do you? On what planet?

Of course no one can switch their business overnight, that's what WINE, Xen and other such projects are for. But I'm here to pick you on your point about IDEs. Photoshop not running on Linux isn't Linux's fault; it's entirely Adobe's fault..But, Visual Studio? Well, we're talking about a completely different philosophy, and a different development model here. First of all, the greatest functionality of all that Visual Studio provides to developers is easy access to documentation. A *nix developer will have

The answer is patience. Suck it up, there is always an awkward, uncomfortable, inconvenient, transition times between OS's. Applications that you would like to use are unavailable because the companies don't want to invest additional resources (although in an major OS swap there are lots of applications that need to get replaced).

So in the big swap from M$ to Linux there are going to be a lot of delays and a lot of hassles. People will just stretch out the old stale piss (and yo will it get stale) for as long as they can, as they stop investing (throwing away) money into windows.

So basically you stop buying or upgrading applications unless they are Linux variants and you get used to dual booting, windows the toy OS for play and Linux for work and the web. M$ with their consistent lies and customers abuse have forced the situation, Linux didn't create the alternate OS market M$ did.

For the PC games companies, Linux will be a huge bonus, as all the old windows boxen die, all those games will have to be replaced, all the way back to win98, literally a market of hundreds of millions of games.

Your complaints don't make sense. Nobody uses Microsoft Office with the specific goal of using Office. They word process, or work with spreadsheets, or make a presentation. All of which can be done under Linux.

Same with games. Just because you can't play some specific Windows only game under Linux doesn't make Linux bad. It's like arguing Windows is bad because I can't play a PS3 specific game on it.

Linux isn't Windows. Some of the shit you're used to on Windows isn't going to work under Linux. If you can't deal with that, stop complaining and just use Windows.

Your complaints don't make sense. Nobody uses Microsoft Office with the specific goal of using Office. They word process, or work with spreadsheets, or make a presentation. All of which can be done under Linux.

Much too simplified - and complacent.

Microsoft offers solutions that work from the server room down to the point of sale.

You want small business accounting integrated with your core office software? Web-based collaboration and document management? [AKA SharePoint] No problemo.

Maybe you could help me. PLZ HELPZ ME!! I want to switch over to Vista but I'm having a hard time finding the apps to replace the things I use most. Every one says to use Paint, but it just doesn't do everything I like as Gimp does. Also what should I use to replace vi? I've tried notepad but there is so much to learn, all these menus and button flash... I'm just a normal person. I want to turn it on and have it work, not fiddle with all this license and fee goop. Maybe you uber geeks like all this msconfig nonsense, but for a normal user it's just a hassle. I spent two hours on the phone trying to get my Vista box authorized... until Microsoft can get a simple interface for installation like apt-get or emerge I really don't think they will find much of a market in the desktop realm! Don't hate, just my two centz!

He's not asking "How do I use Linux to solve a problem?" He's asking "If I use Linux, how do I still give Microsoft money?" If the question were the former, the question would have been "How do I deal with these.docx documents?" In that case my answer would be to use OO.o to convert them to a standard format, except for the ones that stupidly require vendor specific software. For those you still have to use MSOffice apps to convert them until you can get your contacts to use an interoperable format, and that means probably Citrix.

We don't tolerate people sending us.WP documents or VisiCalc spreadsheets any more, do we? Unless we must, and then we convert them.

For gaming the problem is the same. Game developers are developing on the Windows platform not because DirectX is such a joy to work with or because it's a nice reliably consistent platform. Neither of those things are true. They're doing it because they sell a lot of copies and because they're evangelised to do it. The sooner they're weaned from that the better, and shifting to console games for a while can ease the transition. The point of playing games after all is not to play them on your PC. It's to play them. So play them on a platform that's designed for them. Duh.

If he wants to just give Microsoft money for no reason, he can continue to overlicense unused software like most enterprises are doing right now. That's a hearty way to flush some serious cash down the Redmond toilet for no reason if that's what you want to do. As abhorrent as the idea is, it's still better than actually using that stuff.

The sooner they're weaned from that the better, and shifting to console games for a while can ease the transition. The point of playing games after all is not to play them on your PC. It's to play them. So play them on a platform that's designed for them. Duh.

WHAT

I thought that Linux fans were also the DIY folks. Saying to people making games "Oh I guess you should start working only on proprietary systems that require either fees or homebrew cracks to get them to work" is madness!

The reason there is a vibrant indie gaming scene is the relative ease of development, accessibility and ubiquity of the Windows platform. Sure if Linux can take over and become the default OS, the indie scene might move over there, but suggesting that in the meantime people should limit their gaming consumption exclusively to proprietary gaming systems is really stupid and counterproductive.

The point of playing games after all is not to play them on your PC. It's to play them. So play them on a platform that's designed for them. Duh.

Get back to me when a strategy game or FPS has been made on a console which is anywhere near as good as the best strategy/FPS games on the PC. It hasn't happened, and probably never will.

If he wants to just give Microsoft money for no reason

Wanting to use the apps you like is not "no reason". Until Linux will run all the apps I want (or even just most, that's certainly not asking too much) transparently, with no hassle, it will continue to be a vastly inferior OS for my use. Sorry, but them's just the facts: application availability does matter. Your argument that it doesn't is like telling someone that they should get a Wii because of its innovative and easy controller, even though the 360 has most of the games they like.

Unsurprisingly, you display a tremendous lack of knowledge about video game design. Go talk to a proper game designer about the differences between PC and console games. You'll discover that most developers are forced to dumb down their console products so that they do not scare away console gamers who may be confused with things that have more than 10 buttons.

Current gen consoles are making progress, weening console gamers into more complex gaming that has been on the pc for years, but its still not anywhere close to the mark.

In short, PC games have a different design process from console games, and your suggestion to use a console for PC gaming is completely and laughably absurd. It contains the same short sighted illogic of your suggestion to use citrix in linux to run an office application. Your only concern seems to be to stop giving microsoft money, with absolutely no concern for the real requirements that were originally provided. In light of these facts, I wouldn't be surprised to find that you work for microsoft.

As a side note: You suggest giving money to Sony instead of Microsoft? Short sighted indeed.

Actually, as a long time Unix programmer and current game console developer, DirectX really is a lot more pleasurable than most of the alternatives. I'm not a big MS fan, but DirectX is nice, and the documentation is very good.

Developing for Nintendo and Sony requires a bit of a taste for the black arts.

Eventually gaming on Linux will catch up. In the interim, console gaming is a good substitute. When you're striking the chains some pain is to be expected.

As a side note: You suggest giving money to Sony instead of Microsoft? Short sighted indeed.

When Microsoft's goal was to save us from the evil monolith that was IBM, I was their biggest fan. Now I'm a big fan of IBM and not Microsoft. This isn't difficult to understand. I haven't changed sides. They have.

I'll take this for what it is: an admission that your "solution" doesn't actually meet the requirements presented by the problem.

You say gaming will catch up; so your solution doesn't work now, but somewhere in some possible future? You say that eventually people will move to standardized file formats, sometime in this glorious future.

How can you expect people to use a product that you readily admit doesn't suit their needs instead of one that actually does fulfill all the requirements with a few very notable drawbacks? The point is that with this "wrong" solution requirements are being resolved with a trade-off. Your solution doesn't meet their needs now and also has notable trade-offs. Guess which one people will consistently choose?

I still don't understand why you bothered bringing IBM into this to explain why you suggested that instead of giving money to one evil corporation, that getting a PS3 and thus giving money to another evil corporation is better? You're acting like you've got scruples, but it seems they're just blinders. Do you so intensely hate Microsoft that you're willing to allow wrongs done by another corporation corporation slide unnoticed? Once again, a compromise I'm not willing to make for another non-solution.

Don't get me wrong, I love Linux, and I know from first hand experience that a decent sized company [centro.net] can be run almost exclusively on open source software. I've got 3 linux boxes, a gaming pc, and a 360 all sitting on the very same desk. It didn't burst into flames or anything. The point is, I love and support FLOSS, but I hate when people propose it for solutions for which it isn't intended (yet) because when it inevitable goes wrong it hurts the chances of any other FLOSS projects seeing the light of day within these restricted environments. So cut it out, will you?

"Until Linux will run all the apps I want (or even just most, that's certainly not asking too much) transparently, with no hassle,"

Hell, Windows doesn't meet those criteria! In my experience, using Linux is MUCH less hassle than using Windows. It's true, not every Windows app runs under Linux, but there's this thing called a 'trade-off' - I believe that the relative ease of installation, use and maintenance of Linux much more than compensates for a couple of missing apps*.

*things like certain pro-audio apps, high-end graphics packages - y'know, those apps that everyone likes to have a hot copy, but 99.99% of people don't even know how to open (let alone use). People used to collect stamps - now they collect warez...

Your confusion between capitalism (which tends to lead to monopolies, and really is about wealth creation) and free-markets (which by definition has the inherent requirement of a balance of power and isn't about wealth creation so much as allocation of resources) doesn't help. In fact its counterproductive. People don't like to be told that there preferences are bad for them, be said preferences for drugs, or fatty foods, or encumbered formats, protocols and architectures. Be aware: patience does little

The reason there is a vibrant indie gaming scene is the relative ease of development, accessibility and ubiquity of the Windows platform. Sure if Linux can take over and become the default OS, the indie scene might move over there, but suggesting that in the meantime people should limit their gaming consumption exclusively to proprietary gaming systems is really stupid and counterproductive.

Linux has independent [wesnoth.org] games [happypenguin.org]. The indie scene has already expanded into penguinland. Which is good, since - in my e

If using your software on Linux means you need to run Windows in a VM, then that isn't dropping the Microsoft OS altogether, is it?

Well he was answering the question "How do I run Office 2007 and VS 2008 under Linux?" Your issue is with the question, not the fact that he answered it. If the questioner had asked "what can I use for an Office app in Linux" and the responder said run Office 2007 in Citrix, you would have had a point. But he didn't.

Until you can come up with a solution other than "Stop using proprietary software" or "VM Windows", it isn't going to work out.

How about we're going to run an Exchange server on 2003 but our clients will run Evolution in KDE, or something like that? Does it have to be all or nothing? Oth, what's wrong with having "stop using proprietary software" as a "big picture" goal, that everyone works towards. Just like asking everyone to be frugal and reuse things as much as possible to cut down on overhead, you could also give people incentives to bring in free and open source alternatives to proprietary software you are using, especially if the vendor you are currently using charges fees at every opportunity and does its best to lock you in and prevent you from using it in concert with software from other vendors.

This is what I'm doing at my work. I may never get us completely rid of Windows and other "squeeze-every-last-penny-out-of-you-we-can" type software, but every time I manage slip in a FOSS solution (using Drupal in a LAMP box to create a resource center on the company intranet for example) it's a win for the company, and an overall step in the right direction.

Windows XP is still available. You can stock up on enough copies to meet your VM needs.

You can keep an activated VM to roll back to when your Windows VM becomes corrupted, as all of them do, with less trouble than imaging a real machine.

It doesn't have access to your real hardware unless you let it.

That Vista isn't pleasant in a VM is a good reason to avoid it. In case you haven't heard, avoiding it looks more and more likely these days. If you're doing development and have to test on Vista then you're already using it in a VM or you're stupid.

In many cases, XP runs better in a VM than it does natively. Imagine that.

When it's time to retire it, you can drag the XP VM to the trashcan where it belongs.

Keeping the status quo is not an option. Microsoft is forcing the migration whether you want it or not. The question is, since you're being forced to migrate would you prefer to not be forced next time? If so, then where you should migrate to [distrowatch.com] should be obvious.

The idea of XP in a VM or in Citrix is to smooth the migration to an open system where control of your IT is up to you, not to a corporation with a profit motive to keep shuffling you along the upgrade path and tying down your options and artificially limiting your choices.

You still need a copy of Windows on the VM and Vista isn't particularly pleasant in that type of environment.

Did my XP licenses all just disappear in a puff of smoke? That's one of the advantages to have at least a few beige boxes running off-the-shelf XP Pro. If the hardware dies, you can install the OS in a VM and still get use out of it.

As far as I know Office 2007 runs just fine in XP. If it doesn't, run Office 2003. Or OpenOffice.org. Or run Office 2007 on a Vista box if you just have to.

But don't tell me it's Office 2007 and VS 2008 or nothing. For most users that's not the case. If you need it, spend the money on it and be happy.

Yes, there are a lot of advantages to a VM. But switching from Windows on native hardware to Windows in a VM is not a solution if you are eliminating Windows from the picture.

Using distrowatch as a source to show where to migrate to? No thanks. That will only tell me what distro all the fanboy-types prefer as they are the type to go to that site to get their hits counted. Most of the Linux servers or professional workstations don't visit that site for their hit quota.

You guys aren't getting any traction in this thread and your best bet is to ignore it. You won't, but at least I told you so.

No, you can't. The license does not permit you to move OEM copies to a different host. So if the machine dies, the license did just go up in a puff of smoke. I don't think I have ever seen a retail license on business owned machines, but if you did then that might leave that option open.

The vagaries of licensing are some of the things that make open solutions so much more inviting. If you discontinue your support contracts, you don't get any more support from your open source provider. The don't sue you for continuing to experience the benefits of the support you've already paid for.

Let's say I want to perform a task, and my financial security depends on my performance.

And your solution for this is to make yourself a hostage to the good intentions of a commercial software vendor? That sounds like a bad plan.

Vagaries of licensing! A friend from Oak Ridge National Labs vacationed here, and I watched him jumping through hoops with a MatLab installation on his Vista Laptop. He spent about 10 hours on the phone over a three day period and was sent installation CDs via next day rush twice (!) in an attempt to install past their DRM that just plain wouldn't work properly. They were very polite and apologetic, but the bottom line is that he spent his time dealing with a broken system instead of modeling nuclear rea

You mean office 2007 doesn't run under WINE? Well, it will eventually, though why you'd freakin want to use it over 2003 is beyond me. As for Visual Studio, if you're developing for Linux (MS truly ending XP sales will be enough to push me and other IT managers to start using Linux on all machines that don't *need* Windows-only apps - for general office uses Linux is fine, though as Autodesk don't do any CAD apps on linux then I'd have a real job switching over our engineering dept..) then why would you nee

I'm a HUGE GTA fan and when San Andreas came out I bought a PS2 just for that game. I think I paid around $200 CAD for both the game and the system.

GTA 4 comes out later this month and with the PS3 and XBox 360 at $400 + there is simply no freakin' way I can justify shelling out the cash, and I'm heart broken because I've been looking forward to it since like 2004 after I finished San Andreas.

Depends on the game.If you mean all current and next gen games, you'd better have a few consoles, too.

If you just mean enough, there are quite a few games with Linux ports (more than you'd think), and more run under Wine. I honestly don't have time to play all the games that I could play on Linux. I will confess I dual-boot, though -- to XP.

The answer to Office and VS is to run alternatives -- in particular, if you have to run VS at all, chances are you're not developing anything that would run on Linux any

Actually, here at microsoft HQ, we've replaced all the Windows developers with "retarded crack monkeys", as you put it. It really saves on development costs. The only drawback is getting the verious drugs (crack, LSD, meth, etc) that the monkeys are on. The reason for this is simple. Have you ever heard of a normal monky creating an operating system? It's ludicrous! Unless, of course, the monkeys are as high as a kite!

The drawbacks are, well, install Vista and you'll see for yourself. The upsides are more

It is not just data in propietry formats you lose it is also experiance. A different application may have similar functionality but will often do things very differently. The same goes for configuring the os to be the way you like (BTW does anyone know how to make the taskbar on gnome have more than one row and stop it folding together windows from the same program when it gets moderately crowded)Worse things vary a lot between linux distros, the configuration tools provided are often completely different.

I'm someone who's grown up with windows... I installed Vista recently and it is quick (though it does play with the hard drive far too much for my liking). I play games...

I bought a new PC recently and got vista oem with it because I wanted it. I've got windows 2000 installed on my system too, it's a decent operating system. It was a hell of a lot easier to get up and running than Vista... I just installed the drivers that weren't there and it worked full stop. Anyone who thinks Vista 64 is easy to

Interesting as well that the testers didn't seem to grasp the differences in the way Vista manages applications and resources. Programs running under Vista should become more responsive the more you use them.

Not on the eee [slashdot.org] they don't. Nor under any of the 50 low cost MIDs and mini notebook pc's [moblin.org] coming out in the next few months. For the two pound laptop with six hours of battery life Vista is dead on arrival.

Vista 14% Up From 4%

Lies, damn lies and statistics. All the way up at 14% after a year and a half with under a year to go before the next version is out [slashdot.org]? That means it's going to peak at something under 30%. Sure, they sold lots of licenses nobody is using. They made Billions doing that. I hope that's not the kind of trick you can get people to fall for over and over. I wish I knew it for sure.

Now, that looks like Vista is catching on. But let's take a deeper look at those figures.

10% plus in one year. Now, how often does the average computer user change his hardware? Every 3-5 years. So, assuming that he also gets a new system when he gets a new machine (which is the norm for those buying computers preassembled rather than building them on their own), this should be reflected by at the very least 20% increase in Vista userbase, because 1/5 of the people should have replaced their machines (assuming a 5 year cycle).

Essentially, what this 10% increase means is, that about half of the people who got new hardware also got Vista to it, and nobody switched "mid-life" for their hardware.

Essentially, what this 10% increase means is, that about half of the people who got new hardware also got Vista to it, and nobody switched "mid-life" for their hardware.

Many people getting new hardware, got an OS other than Vista. My dad got a Mac. My new Core 2 Duo machine runs Ubuntu Studio. To get it without an unwanted OS meant assembling it myself. Boot to login and login to homepage on screen on the Mac or Ubuntu machine is much faster than any of the Windows machines in the house.

All I see from the statistics you offered that Vista climbed in the time from Jan 2007 to Feb 2008 by about 8%. Could you explain where you get the confidence from that it will multiply its market share by 2.5 within two month?

THAT it grows is a given. It's the new OS from MS. Anything but a growth in market share would be a complete and utter desaster for MS. Interesting is which OSs Vista takes market shares from. You'll notice that it gains about as much from 2k users as it does from XP (with "alternative" systems staying pretty much stable). It seems that at least half of the "early adopters" had to, since the support for 2k has died, and they went for Vista, skipping XP altogether.

Also, please take note what this statistic measures. It counts the machines that connect to that certain page via the internet. So I would probably be counted as a Windows XP machine, even though this is only a virtual machine running on linux. We're also not counting any servers here. Else I'd say that MS is really, really in big doodoo, considering that according to that statistic, more than twice as many Macs or Linux machines are running than 2003 servers.

Makes sense for the W3Schools, since they are mainly concerned with the question which machines access webpages on the net (and even more so, what browser they use). But taking this as a measurement for the amount of machines on certain OSs doesn't hold enough water to make me a cup of Java.

I had to reload XP on a system the other day and had the issue of having to call in the activation because it wouldn't activate over the internet. I had to explain that yes this install was not being installed on more than one PC etc and finally they gave me the unlock code. So what happens in the future? Who knows!

I've had to reactivate my legal copy of Windows XP so many times that I finally gave up and downloaded a pirate version...I expect many people will do the same...I purchased a copy of XP, I think it's reasonable that I should be able to replace my hard drive without having to contact Microsoft and convince them that I'm not stealing their product...If you treat your customers like thieves they just might meet your expectations...

As it stands now, virtually none of ham radio applications run on Vista, and chances are slim that they will be updated. FlexRadio's PowerSDR, for example, works on Vista only if you have one of two supported $300 audio "cards" (external FireWire boxes, to be precise.) On XP it works with any audio card, even unsupported.

But who's fault is that "hardware X" is not supported on Vista? OSes change over time and sometimes drivers need to be updated to support a new OS. I'd say the blame for incompatible hardware falls in the hands of both Microsoft and Hardware vendors. MS screwed up and didn't give people a backwards compatibility mode, as well, they didn't give hardware companies enough time/warning to fix the problems.But at the same time, it's been over 1.5 years since software houses have known that the driver stack in

It isn't as though MS changes driver requirements all that often. There has been a real long time between XP and Vista. MS isn't requiring people to release new drivers every 6 months, more like every 5-6 years. That isn't unreasonable. Have a look at how often nVidia has to change their Linux drivers and tell me who requires more.

Also, as you noted, it isn't as though there hasn't been some time. Vista has been on the open market for over a year now, and MS told their developers at Beta 2 that all the driver interfaces were stable. That's a lot of time to have developed a new driver. If you still haven't, well I have trouble feeling that it is MS's fault. If you can't learn the new (very well documented) interfaces in a year's time, well then there is something wrong on your end.

Computers change, that is simply a fact of life. If you can't deal with that, then you are in teh wrong business. You can't expect to release something and not have to change it for 30 years. Interfaces (serial, USB, firewire, etc) will change, buses (PCI, PCIe) will change. OSes will change. You are going to have to update to support those.

When Vista first came out, I told people to lay off the hardware companies. It takes time to build a stable driver on new architecture, especially the video card companies who had some really massive changes. Now, I don't defend the hardware companies at all. You've had a year, and just about everyone does have a stable, tested driver out. If you still can't, well that is your problem, not MS's.

That's a given. But if you don't show the user where his performance goes, he gets a tad bit upset.

When you switched from Dos to 95, you saw the difference. Quite literally. When you went from 98 to 2k, you noticed it (in a LOT fewer BSODs). Since then, though, it has become rather hard to explain the decreased performance.

This is going to sound crazy, but bear me out. So here's what Microsoft does. They take the OS and develop a Windows GUI for it. They pour a billion dollars or so into WINE development and research (while providing WINE's coders with full access to existing Windows APIs) and they bring WINE's performance and compatibility to dizzying heights. And then they sell it. Call it Windows, sell it as Windows and do what Apple's done with Darwin. Keep the proprietary stuff proprietary and the OSS stuff OSS. You'd wind up with a rock-solid OS, and your users could run their old software until their apps received an update to the new system. Eventually WINE would no longer be needed.

This all sounds a lot like Apple, MacOS X and Classic, doesn't it?

Anyway, there we go. I'm sure there are a thousand valid reasons why this couldn't/wouldn't work and naturally it will never happen. I understand that. I can dream though, can't I?

Exactly, but what's even more stupid is the assumption that Linux has something to offer Microsoft. Of all the problems MS faces, developing a desirable core OS isn't one of them and Linux wouldn't be at the top of their list even it it were. MS could develop an entirely new OS using a Windows emulation environment, but they wouldn't need either Linux OR WINE to make that happen.

That's the last day when large computer makers -- the Dells, HPs and Lenovos of the world -- will be allowed to preinstall Windows XP on new PCs. It also marks the official end of XP as a retail product.

I wouldn't bet against anyone who thinks torrents will be flooded with cracked XP copies when this happens. Windows XP is actually selling remarkably well now that people agree Vista isn't what it once promised. Now that Microsoft is cutting off the supply, people will see piracy as a more viable option and say that it's either that or OSX/Linux.

The problem is not the increase in resource use. This is nothing new. Every release of Windows, most releases of OS X and even some new flavors of Linux have increased resource use because they do more. The big problem for Microsoft this go-'round is that Vista really doesn't give you enough reason to accept the increased resource use. XP is a perfectly fine OS and to get people to move away, especially if that move is to a resource hog, you really need to drop the hammer and give people a kick-ass must-have OS. MS clearly failed to do that in Vista and they're paying for it now.

Actually, it's fairly well known that every new release of OS X has been FASTER and leaner: specifically 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4. (This is backed up by my experience on personal machines and production studios of Macs.)

In particular, 10.3 is noticeably snappier on G3 (even beige) compared to 10.2.

Can't speak for 10.5 as I've had limited exposure, but few are complaining - maybe because the Intel Macs are so fast out of the gate anyway:)

Seriously, can we just stop doing this everytime there is a new release of windows? When XP was released it was "OH MY GOSH, NOBODY LIKES XP!!! WINDOWS2000 WILL BE AROUND FOREVER!!!!". Now we're doing it all over again with Vista. There isn't a pattern or ANYTHING. Like maybe large enterprises that move at a snail's pace tend to adopt one rev behind.

The difference is that this time it's not just the geeks. Sure, you always had geeks lamenting that they will not, under any circumstances, accept the horrible changes (be it activation in XP, DRM in Vista...), and that the whole system looks so Teletubby, and that they won't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Not even with a 0x10 feet one.

But usually, the general audience and especially companies accepted the new system. It offered more ease of use, easier integration of peripherals, looked nicer and so on. Vista is different, though. Yes, it looks nicer. But people started to catch on. They noticed that the final version for an MS product is sporting an "SP2" sticker next to it. They got what they want in XP. They heard that this or that hardware doesn't work in Vista anymore. But the biggest problem is what we (geeks) have been lamenting for years now, and which backfired when MS started to take it serious: Security. UAC is one of the things that is very high on the annoyances list of the average user.

This is the difference this time. It's not only the geeks who turn their noses at the new MS-OS. It's a general sentiment. And even OEM manufacturers are pressing MS for prolongued support for XP, since they saw the demand for machines with an "old" OS. Tells you something. Because geeks are certainly no important market segment. Yes, we buy more soft- and hardware than the average guy (ok, at least hardware, since the real, pure geek won't touch anything but OSS... yeah, yeah), but we're few compared to the masses buying PCs these days. And we're picky, and we're not easily turned away when something doesn't work out, we're not really an interesting customer group. Certainly we're not the core customers for Dell or HP. And these companies exactly demanded and pressed for longer OEM sales of XP.

So the rejection of Vista isn't the geek phenomenon that it usually is. It's a much, much broader reaction this time.

What I'd like to see is a more concerted effort to address the problems with Vista. Microsoft could make Vista as fast and usable as XP today if they would just get through their thick heads that some of the policies they came up with for vista are bone headed.

Consider:

1. Drivers. There's no reason Vista can't be made compatible with XP's faster video drivers, except that Microsoft is being stubborn.

2. 64 bit support. Microsoft has willfully hamstrung Vista 64 by not providing compatibility with 32 bit drivers, and by making the Vista 64 driver model more restrictive than the Vista 32 bit. If you look at Apple's systems, they have a much better model where 32 bit drivers work *fine* on a 64 bit system. There's no reason your video card driver needs to be 64 bit anyway...

3. Background tasks. Here's a hint: Let us easily turn them the fuck off. There should be some kind of Windows performance control panel that provides a central place to switch off file indexing, and the endless other miscellaneous tasks that spin the drive on Vista *constantly*.

Until those issues are addressed, it's stupid to expect gamers who need good graphics drivers, and laptop users who can't have the spinning harddrive wearing down the battery constantly to take a second look at Vista.

I gave Vista a good 6 months, and really did appreciate things like not having to run as administrator constantly. I felt much more secure running with lower privileges user like I do on my Ubuntu and OSX installs. However, dispite the fact that I tweaked the hell out of my system (including turning off file indexing and switching off aero in favor of the win2k look), and the fact that my system *should* be ridiculously overpowered by looking at the hardware specs, the background services made my system run like a *dog*.

I've switched back to XP, and it is like night and day. Suddenly, my machine no longer locks up doing some stupid task in the background. Suddenly, the stutter is gone from my games. Suddenly, everything is snappier.

What's more, I now actually get to run with file indexing ON, by using the google desktop. This gives me all of the same search functionality as I got on vista, but with no noticeable performance overhead. Hell, I could probably start running as a non admin user on XP, now that applications have finally been forced to learn to live with reduced permissions for Vista compatibility...

2. 64 bit support. Microsoft has willfully hamstrung Vista 64 by not providing compatibility with 32 bit drivers, and by making the Vista 64 driver model more restrictive than the Vista 32 bit. If you look at Apple's systems, they have a much better model where 32 bit drivers work *fine* on a 64 bit system. There's no reason your video card driver needs to be 64 bit anyway...

Windows NT makes the fundamental assumption that kernel mode programs have direct access to user-mode memory. The kernel is in the same address space as user-mode programs. Kernel drivers can directly read user-mode parameters from the same address that was passed in from user mode. This offloads parameter checking from software to the CPU's page table, a nice performance increase.

This prevents 32-bit drivers from ever being possible in NT. A 64-bit user program would pass in a 64-bit pointer in an ioctl and a 32-bit driver would have no way of accessing that address. The kernel can't translate because it does not know what ioctls mean, and they can contain pointers.

In contrast, Darwin's kernel has a separate address space for user mode and kernel mode. Switching between user mode and kernel mode is a full page table reload, and access to user memory from the kernel is done through special accessor functions. This is a additional cost to kernel calls in Darwin compared to NT.

As for video card drivers not needing to be 64-bit... The extra 8 general and 8 SSE registers do help in the inner loops written in assembly language for some operations that the cards don't support directly.

There's no reason Vista can't be made compatible with XP's faster video drivers, except that Microsoft is being stubborn.

I believe the reasoning is that output drivers now run in a new model where if a driver fails, it will not crash the system. There have been many cases where my ATI driver crashed but Vista 64 was able to restart it without bluescreening. In XP a driver crash will take down your entire system whether it be some stupid usb device like a microphone or the video driver.

making the Vista 64 driver model more restrictive than the Vista 32 bit

I actually like the fact that the driver system is more restrictive. There were a lot of companies selling hardware that they claimed "co

What matters is what goes on in the trenches. When major corporations still prohibit the installation of Vista on any machine that connects to their network, Microsoft will continue to sell XP. My Corporation is Fortune 10 and we still prohibit Vista installs!

Vista in all of its flavors requires activation either at the mothership, or via an activation server on your network.

This one requirement, has ZERO benefit for the end user. Microsoft made this mandatory to close the "Volume License Key loophole" that allowed corporate copies of XP to be widely and easily pirated.

Now the anti-piracy cost falls to the end user. Corporations that deploy standard images must now manage the activation process in addition to all the other things that make a Microsoft network tick. There are a million ways that activation causes problems - remote users, computer rental companies that re-image after every use, schools that re-image labs frequently...etc.

So, basically, your machine will be imperceptibly slower if you want all the whiz-bang 3D and transparency of Vista's UI. Go figure.

Other results from the linked article:

XP boots about 30 seconds faster.

Vista copies a large file about 30 seconds faster.

XP might run faster on machines with 256 MB of RAM. Obviously a huge concern with memory costing about $20 per GB.

I don't mean to challenge anyone's world-view, but the people I know who run Vista are quite happy with it. That includes my wife, who runs Vista Home and Office 2007 on her 6 year old laptop with half a gig of RAM.

Anecdotal Story: I bought a new laptop last September (Cheap HP celeron with half a gig of RAM running Vista Home, cost me ~$400) to gift my dad. And that ran like a dog. Really pathetic performance. I immediately added another gig of RAM and performance was much better. Not as snappy as WinXP but not bad. I still don't like it but my Dad is happy with it.

Your wife is happy with Vista Home on a 6 year old laptop with half a gig a RAM? Now I know you're BSing us. You're seriously nuts if you upgraded a 6

I have written many anti vista postings since I bought a notebook with Vista loaded on it last decemember.

Most of the anti vista comments here are untrue after you get used to it, use the new start menu features and install SP1, updated drivers, and bios upgrades.

Both hogs such as Netbeans and OpenOffice ran slower on my notebook than XP assuming Vista is set up properly. Disk fetching and better caching is how I attribute the performance increase.

The majority of Vista bashes are from those who have semi supported hardware.

My notebook was running off of disk PIO mode during startup and no sata was loaded with the default Vista install. As you can imagine my system took forever to boot and when Vista indexed it slowed things down. I bashed Vista constantly here.

I downgraded to XP but upgraded back to Vista. I missed the windows index search when you hit the start button. Here is a hint for XP users.... your not supposed to find your programs by your mouse. Just type it in! Also I can search my javadocs and my ms word papers for school quickly by seaching by content. I go to a christian school with bible versus required in my papers. Vista makes my job easier as I type a subject and it searches the index for my conent.

Vista is not fast after Toshibe provided an SD sata driver and a bios update to start vista quickly. SP1 fixed the constant disk usage. It rarely ever gets in the way once things are up. Wow is just as fast in vista as in XP. Maybe only a few fps slower.

But Vista is nice for computer neophytes and the hardware markers need to take the heat for the negative public opinion.

The intent of copyright is to allow an author of a creative work to profit from sales of the work. It is NOT intended to stop non-profit copying of a work which is not being sold. If you're engaging in non-commercial copying of a copyrighted work, a judge will take seriously a defense of "But I cannot buy the work!"

In my house I run Windows XP Media Edition, 2x Windows XP Pro, and Vista Ultimate 64. Hands down Vista is my favorite OS to use. Granted, early versions were harder to swallow, as I have been using Vista since early Beta.

However, the major problems I had initially have been addressed. Driver compatibility, Stability and Memory usage - since SP1 at least, all of these problems have gone away for me, most of them long before SP1.

While Vista may not be the best choice for everyone, I use it for Office 2007, Photoshop, Video Encoding, and Gaming (Crysis/2142) and have nothing but praises to sing for those uses.

Of course, I realize gamers that use basic photo editing software and office applications are in the minority....

Last I checked, it was competing with free software remarkably well. In fact, it owns something like 70-90% of the market [pcpitstop.com], depending on which market you look at.
Surely someone as open-minded, intelligent and non-biased such as yourself must stand back and admit that it must be doing SOMETHING right in order to maintain that lead, as well as for so many people to kick up a fuss now that it looks like it's going to be killed off.
Surely, I mean surely in the near-25-years that Microsoft has been developing w